Harbor Havoc 3D

Harbor Havoc 3D is an intense game of collision avoidance from Backflip Studios, creators of Paper Toss and Ragdoll Blaster. With gameplay that is simple to learn but challenging to master, this game will keep you playing for hours....

The path drawing genre, which has been already become one of the iPhone’s most crowded spaces in less than a year, is constantly growing. First we had Flight Control, which created the game mechanic of directing objects to their place by drawing lines on the screen. Then Harbor Master and 33rd Division took it to the next level by adding other elements, such as enemies, power-ups, and cargo. Harbor Havoc 3D takes from all of these and builds upon their formula in a successful effort to welcome in the next generation of path drawing games.

Each of the four levels is very different from one another. Far East is a lot like Harbor Master in that you only have boats. Atlantis brings in submarines and underwater obstacles into the picture, meaning you need to manage two different vehicles on the map at once. Arctic adds yet another machine: the helicopter. This level can be compared to playing three games at one time.

By air, by sea, or by sub.

If you reach a score of 25 on each, you unlock what may be the most challenging level we have ever encountered in a path drawer: Lighthouse. The difficulty ramps up immediately due to restricted vision to the cone of light given off by a lighthouse in the middle of the map. Blindly moving ships is as hard, if not harder, than it sounds.

As the title suggests, Harbor Havoc 3D takes your boat directing to the next dimension. While the game is still top-down, all of the models have been rendered in crisp 3D style. Vibrant colors and flowing, bright blue water are eye candy and give the game a very tropical feel. Vehicle shadows also add to the gameplay when you are managing multiple levels of them at the same time. Each level has a different theme, changing the map’s visual style completely. For example, one has palm trees and ocean-side huts, while another is in what seems to be a naval base. Even the scrolling menus are impressive.

The detailed graphics also lead to one of the main cons in Harbor Havoc. Sometimes the boat and dock colors don’t quite match up. When you touch a boat, it lights up the dock it needs to go to, but this means pulling your eyes away from the rest of the action. We hope a bit more clarification comes in the future.

That’s what you don’t want to see happen.

Harbor Havoc 3D’s soundtrack is definitely more interesting than other simple ditties found in similar games. The full instrumental songs kept our interest for a decent amount of time before we used our own music (which there is a secret achievement for). The boat sounds are a little unpleasant, though, and sound closer to a moan than a horn. Oddly, the helicopters and submarines also have this same noise, which seemed out of place in a game that paid so much attention to detail.

Plus+ brings all its great features to the table, such as push notification challenges, a slew of achievements, online leaderboards, and a great community. If you are a collector of games that use this social gaming platform, this is a worthy purchase without a doubt.

We understand that our readers have played a lot of path drawing titles, but we highly recommend Harbor Havoc 3D. We think this could give way to a whole new generation for the ever-evolving genre.

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